Arriving into Osaka by bullet
The bullet train from Tokyo to Osaka was over in a flash — one minute we were leaving a mega‑city of 40 million, the next we were rolling into a much smaller mega‑city of only 19 million. Practically a village.
Within minutes we were back on another complex metro system, trying to navigate our way around the city while the kids plotted their first move.
And of course, they won.
Osaka: The Great Character‑Store Pilgrimage
Our first stop wasn’t a temple, a castle, or a cultural landmark. Nope — we spent the morning traipsing around every character store known to childhood:
- Pokémon
- Kirby
- Sylvanian Families
- Ghibli
- Sega
By the time we’d finished, Anya and I were already exhausted and ready for a lie‑down. Instead, we headed to Dotonbori — Osaka’s neon‑soaked riverfront, where the crowds feel like they number one billion.
And this is where the kids discovered their new obsession: UFO Catchers.
For the uninitiated, a UFO Catcher is one of those claw machines where the claw never — ever — closes properly. You have more chance of catching a real UFO.
Japan is full of them. Every second shop in Dotonbori seemed to be one.
We refused to let the kids waste their money on a machine so obviously rigged… …until Sofia found a 100‑yen coin under one of the machines.
Cue both children crawling around the floor of every arcade like tiny commandos, scraping coins out from under machines, through dust, food crumbs, and probably other thing best unknown.
It was borderline embarrassing — but also impressive. They made a small fortune.
They spent it all on UFO Catchers. They won absolutely nothing. Not even a wobble.
I kept “I told you so” to myself. Kind of.
Escaping the City: Minoo Waterfall
After a few days of neon, noise, and claw‑machine heartbreak, we desperately needed nature.
Several trains later, we arrived in the outer suburb of Minoo, which felt like a small village compared to Osaka’s chaos. A 45‑minute forest walk took us to Minoo Waterfall, and it was glorious.
The kids were back where they belong — in nature, climbing rocks, splashing in rivers, and attempting to build a dam that absolutely did not work. It was simple, peaceful, and exactly what we needed.
Nara: Bowing Deer & Too Many Tourists
The next day we headed to Nara, a short train ride away and home to the famous Nara Park — temples, forest walks, and hundreds of roaming deer.
We assumed it would be quiet. We were wrong. It was heaving.
But the deer were brilliant — incredibly tame and, to our surprise, they bow. Yes, bow. Either they’ve been trained, or they instinctively know that in Japan, if you don’t follow the rules, something bad will happen.
We spent the day wandering, feeding deer, dodging deer, and eating delicious food before heading home exhausted.
Just to reiterate once again – the deer do bow.
Kyoto: Temples, Futons & A Very Long Journey
We left Osaka and headed to Kyoto for two days. To make life easier, we stored our big bags in a locker at Osaka Station and travelled light.
The bullet train takes 15 minutes. Our non-bullet journey took four hours.
We clearly messed up somewhere — probably distracted by several snack stops.
Kyoto was Japan’s capital for 1,000 years and still has over 2,000 temples and shrines. It’s full of old wooden houses, narrow streets, and tourists trying to take the same photo from the same angle.
We stayed in a traditional machiya — sliding doors, futons on the floor, and a legless chair called a zaisu. If I’d come here in my backpacking days, a legless chair would’ve matched my legless state. Now, with a creaky back and questionable flexibility, getting up and down was… a challenge.
But staying there was brilliant.
Kyoto’s sights are spread out, and after Tokyo and Osaka’s metro trauma, we chose our battles. We saw:
- Fushimi Inari and its endless orange gates
- Arashiyama and the bamboo forest
- The old streets of Gion, the traditional geisha district
With better planning (and more energy), we could’ve seen more — but we loved what we managed.
The Locker Incident
Leaving Kyoto, we headed back to Osaka Station to collect our bags.
This is where things went wrong.
Japanese train stations are enormous — multi‑level shopping malls, underground tunnels, overground platforms, escalators going in every direction, and thousands of people moving with purpose.
We followed signs to “Lockers”. None were ours.
Time was ticking. Our airport contingency was shrinking.
Then Anya remembered I’d taken a photo of the locker — mainly because I was feeling very smug about having jammed all our bags into a single locker to save money. That smugness evaporated when the door wouldn’t close. I tried everything: shoving, shoulder‑barging, and finally taking a dramatic run‑up to boot the bags deeper inside like I was taking a penalty to win the world cup. The locker attendant just stood there, arms folded, watching me assault a metal box before calmly suggesting I pay for a second locker.
Damn rules.
Anyway, that photo saved us. For once, Google’s tracking tendencies worked in our favour. With the help of a very patient station staff member, we eventually found our locker — seven minutes away, on another floor, across a road, and nowhere near where we’d been looking.
We grabbed our bags, sprinted to the train, and made it to the airport on time.
Just.
Goodbye Japan — Hello Korea
And with that, the Japan chapter closed. A cultural whirlwind. A sensory overload. A place that delighted us, exhausted us, and on many occasions, confused us.
We loved escaping the cities and finding nature — and now we’re off to Seoul, ready for the final leg of the first half of this adventure.
It will be another big city. Wish us luck as I think we will need it.
